The Fierceness of a Storm
by mattmetzger
Summary: Sequel to Mid-Afternoon. McCoy refuses to accept that Spock is beyond repair, and Jim wants to know whether the man he loves even exists any more. And the world, irrespective of their difficulties, isn't slowing down for them. K/S.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: After a ridiculous and unacceptably long wait, here it is! The sequel to 'Mid-Afternoon'. If you have not read the previous installments in this series, then this will make no sense.**

**Also!: I have a new website, where you can stalk my original fiction as well as my fanfiction. Check it out from my profile page. And support the author! I have no groceries again this weekend.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek 2009, and I make no profit from this work.**

* * *

><p>Jim had never experienced a routine getting established so quickly, but this one did. Only a week into shore leave, he already had a set program for every single hour of every single day, and deviance from that routine was <em>unthinkable<em>.

He got up at eight in the morning, every morning, and rushed through a shower and breakfast before going into Spock's room to wake him up and try to engage him in some sort of conversation. That wasn't always entirely successful, but McCoy kept pushing him to maintain light physical contact, and so he sat beside the bed every morning and, at the very least, would hold that single, remaining hand.

He still couldn't bring himself to see any of the sorry stumps left behind by the surgeries, so excused himself to fetch Spock's breakfast while Pike and McCoy helped him bathe and dress, and would return with the tray and a shaky smile. Spock flatly refused help in eating - he was right-handed, and eating, at least, was not much more difficult than it had ever been - so Jim would sit and talk. Sometimes, McCoy or Pike (or both) would keep the two of them company; just as often, they didn't.

Between breakfast and lunch...now that was difficult. His task was to keep Spock focused and...and _there_. Keep him with them - keep his psyche in tune with the rest of the world, and try as much as possible to get his telepathy back to a base level. But Jim was psi-null: apart from physical contact, he only knew one way to keep Spock with him: talking.

And Spock, frankly, wasn't keen on the idea.

He would usually respond in monosyllables, if at all, and his hand would be limp within Jim's grasp. He showed no interest in the crew, or the _Enterprise_, or Starfleet, or diplomacy, or science, or New Vulcan, or...hell, _anything_. He didn't display any emotions at all, not even annoyance at Jim's persistent poking and prodding for responses.

It was like talking to a badly-designed robot.

Lunch would be tedious - by then, Jim would be upset and frustrated and even occasionally angry, and hating himself for feeling any of it - and would sometimes excuse himself and leave Spock to Pike's tough love for an hour or so. In that hour, Jim would usually wander around outside, trying not to punch walls or cry, and wish vaguely that he smoked so that something - _anything _- would take the edge off.

He questioned whether the man he'd fallen in love with was still _there_.

After lunch, he avoided everyone else completely. That was physical therapy - the muscles that had been trimmed to fit with Spock's amputations were wasting without use, and even without prosthetics, McCoy was insistent on giving Spock at least an hour of exercises and therapy a day, if not two.

And Jim couldn't look. For all that he hated himself for it, he still couldn't look. He couldn't see...see that...he just couldn't.

And McCoy would glower at him when he left the house, and Pike would be tight-lipped, and he _knew _what they were thinking - because he was as well. And, hell, maybe even Spock was thinking it, somewhere under all the deadened apathy and trauma.

He would return around four, in time to help Pike bully Spock into leaving the bedroom and sit out onto the garden patio in the wheelchair. Spock's apathy meant that while he verbally protested the action, he did nothing to prevent it, and often Pike would simply fetch the chair and physically lift him into it.

Jim would sit with him under the canopy, holding his hand again and feeling the still-too-faint hum of Spock's _mind _under his fingers, and try to think of something - anything - to say. But by then he was tired - tired of trying to talk to a man who wouldn't talk back, tired of trying to wring out a response and prevent that mental withdrawl that would eventually _kill _him...

Tired of failing his partner.

Tired of _failing_.

Sometimes, after Spock fell asleep in the evenings, drained and silent and _fading_, Jim would kiss his hair and try not to cry.

"I miss you," he whispered once - but only when he was sure Spock wouldn't hear him.

* * *

><p>"It's working," McCoy told him, exactly a week after he'd arrived.<p>

"What?" Jim breathed.

It was late in the evening. Spock had retired for the night - after another withdrawn day - and Pike was in the other room, talking shop with one of the other admirals - and so it was just Jim and Bones, sat at the large oak table in the kitchen and nursing their respective drinks like flies in a seedy dirtside bar.

"You," McCoy said. "Whatever you're doing, it's working. I gave him another scan after his therapy and his telepathy's stabilising."

"How?" Jim asked bitterly. "I'm not doing anything. I can't even fucking _talk _to him."

"Don't need to talk to him," McCoy shrugged. "Whether he wants to or not, the physical contact is making his telepathy react to you. It's always reacted to you - you're in a relationship. It kind of has to."

Jim scoffed.

"If he can take control, then he can reroute all the controls into his remaining hand and then..."

"Yeah, he _could_," Jim interrupted. "But will he?"

McCoy paused.

"Shit, Bones, just looking at him...just...God. He's gone. I've fucking _lost _him. He's...I don't think he _wants _to be fixed. I don't..."

"Frankly," McCoy said slowly, "I don't give a damn if he wants to. He will be. Whether he likes it or not."

"Or what?" Jim choked. "So I stabilise him, so what? If he doesn't take over, then I'll always have to be here holding his hand and...shit, Bones, I _can't_. I can't live the rest of my life trying to reach a man who's no longer _there_!"

"He's there."

"How the fuck do...?"

"Because you know what he said to me when I arrived?" McCoy interrupted. "He asked if I was as prone to practising witchcraft with my beads and rattles on Earth as I was in space."

Jim choked a surprised laugh through the tears.

"He's _there_, Jim. And it's a damn simple diagnosis: he's depressed."

Jim sucked in a shaky breath and scrubbed at the tears with one hand. "Can Vul-?"

"Yes," McCoy said. "It's actually quite a common problem for them. They get a chemical imbalance - usually from wayward telepathy - and they react just like humans do. Their emotions get messed up as well. Usually manifests itself in a loss of appetite, longer periods of meditation, lack of interest in doing anything...very similar disease."

"So...so what do you do?" Jim demanded. "Just give him a hypo, sort out the imbalance, and...?"

"No," McCoy shook his head. "Come on, Jim. You know it's not that easy."

Jim nodded at the table, biting his lip. "I just..."

McCoy ducked his head. "You just what?"

"I just want him _back_."

The doctor sighed. "I know. I know you do, Jim. But...look at things from his side. His life has been destroyed, and he was abandoned..."

"_Aba-_?"

"Look at it from his side of things," McCoy said. "We all know the risks, but they never really hit home until it happens to you, do they? You know life in the Fleet could kill you, but when you're pinned down with phaser fire and a suicide bombing is your best bet, what's running through your head? _How the hell is this happening_? It's the same here. He knew the risks, but this? This isn't what anyone expected."

"But..."

"Logically, he'll know that all of this is perfectly normal. Reassigned to a ground posting, taken away from his ship and his crew and his _partner_ - it's all logical. But the emotionalism is there, whether he'll admit it or not. If that were me, I'd be furious. My friends - my partner - didn't follow me, didn't care enough to fight for me, and dumped me. That's what I'd be thinking."

"Bones, I..."

"None of us ditched him, Jim," McCoy said, his tone softening. "There was nothing else, really, that we could have done. But that's how it's going to _feel_. He's depressed. Plain and simple - he's depressed. His life is in ruins, and everything he strove for is gone. He's still _there _- but under all of that."

"And I'm the fucking source," Jim breathed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well, you're certainly wrapped up in it," McCoy said tentatively.

Jim made a strangled noise and shook his head.

"I'm not _letting _him go under to this," McCoy said flatly. "Call it what you will, but I spent nine damn hours in surgery - eleven if you count the arm - to save his life, and I'll be damned if his shaken psyche makes all that work null and void."

"What the hell are we _supposed _to do?"

"Easy. Be as damn stubborn as he is."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: **

* * *

><p>Starfleet personnel tended to have a few select traits in common. They were generally curious, intelligent, brave in some way, and opportunistic.<p>

The other one was stubborn.

The combination of intelligence and military discipline translated into people that would fiercely stand their ground, often whether they were right or wrong, and would cling to whatever it was they were fighting over with more tenacity than a Klingon stuck to his weaponry.

And very often, major upheavals were simply not permitted to get in the way of their goals.

So, really, Jim shouldn't have been surprised to answer the door the next morning to find Ensign Chekov on the threshold, a bulky messenger bag in his hands and a big, suspiciously innocent smile on his face.

"_Keptin_," he threw off a sharp salute. "Mr. Spock is available?"

"He's, uh, up..."

Chekov brushed past and jogged up the stairs without so much as a by-your-leave, and left Jim goggling at empty space. He shut the door in time to hear Chekov's chirpy greeting to the admiral, and by the time he'd pursued Chekov into Spock's room, the Ensign had emptied the bag onto the end of the bed and was already talking a mile-a-minute.

McCoy was the only one not remotely surprised.

"Pavel said he had some theories on using tractor beams as deflectors that he'd like to run by Spock," he shrugged when Jim gawped at him. "I didn't see the harm in it."

Spock of course didn't look nearly as surprised as Pike and Jim did, and his slow responses eventually became more natural as Chekov rambled, eventually reaching for one of the padds to examine the ensign's calculations. Whether Chekov was just a phenomenal actor, or whether he was genuinely unaware of the tension in the room, Jim didn't know - his navigator was spouting physics equations and astronavigational trajectories at warp speed, and - for once - Spock looked vaguely interested in what was being said.

"Well, I don't understand this kind of shit," McCoy shrugged. "I'm going to hit the grocery store. And _no_, kid, I'm not buying you vodka," he added hastily when Chekov threw a hopeful look in his direction.

Jim was vaguely concerned that his navigator could apparently swear in Andorian in the middle of outlining a training scenario he only vaguely remembered from first year at the academy...but then, with the kind of girls Chekov picked up, he shouldn't be all that surprised.

And if it got Spock to sit up and pay attention, who in the hell _cared_?

* * *

><p>Chekov stayed almost the whole day, and left as enthusiastically as he'd turned up just before dinner. Although Spock claimed fatigue, and remained in his room to eat, Jim came to sit with him anyway, and dared to sit cross-legged on the bed as Chekov had been.<p>

"We've all missed you, you know," he said. "Chekov's been at a loose end without someone to bash out theories with him."

Spock said nothing, methodically working his way through the (non-replicated) meal that McCoy had delivered.

"Who did you stay in contact with?" Jim asked on a whim, picking at the sheets like a fidgety child.

"Dr. McCoy."

"And?"

"I sent a brief message to Lieutenant Sulu..."

"And?"

"...And nobody."

"Yeah. Thought not," Jim said bitterly. "Why? I mean...I get it, you didn't...you didn't want to talk to me, and I can't blame you for that, but...nobody else? Uhura? Chekov? _Nobody_? Why?"

"I do not wish to discuss this."

"Well, tough shit!" Jim snapped, his temper fraying at the edges. "Fucking _tough_! That's all you're doing - all you did since the goddamn fucking _accident_ - running away! You'll never want to talk about it, and you know what? Not _talking _about it, not..."

"And is not running away an exact description of your own actions?"

Jim was brought up short.

"I...understand that things have...changed, Jim," Spock said lowly, not looking up from his plate. "However, I would have...appreciated...some discussion with you. Some...acknowledgement of said changes. I could not go to you physically and you...would not come to me."

Jim ran both hands through his hair and stood from the bed.

"You chose to run away. If I am at fault for withdrawing, then...you must also accept that we have performed the same action, albeit at different times."

Jim swallowed hard. McCoy's angry words from the accident came back with a vengeance...and the sick, sick fear that had plagued him until Spock had been left in a New Vulcan hospital.

Abandonment.

Is that how Spock saw things?

"It...was painful to maintain contact with an...existence that was no longer mine," Spock said quietly, his voice sounding like death itself had entered the room. "It was no longer my place that I sought to keep, and so it..._hurt _less to...start over."

"Only you didn't start," Jim breathed. "You stopped. You just stopped."

Spock said nothing.

"You ran away, and then you stopped," Jim whispered.

Silence.

"Alright," Jim said, turning back to the bed. "Answer me this. Just say yes or no. After...after you left the ship, did you...did you want to die?"

"I..."

"Yes or no, Spock."

"...Yes."

Jim took a deep, very shaky breath. The acid rising towards his lungs made it difficult, but he released the breath calmly, and said, "And...and do you still want to die?"

Silence.

"_Yes or no_."

"...Yes."

The exhalation turned into a sob, and Jim swept from the room just in time to prevent Spock from seeing the tears.

* * *

><p>"He's suicidal," Jim blurted out as he appeared on the front porch an hour later, with raw eyes and a shaky lip.<p>

"What?" McCoy asked eloquently.

"Spock. We talked. He's suicidal," Jim choked.

Pike sighed, rising. "You two stay here. I'll sit with Spock a while."

Jim barely waited until the admiral had gone inside before he was sitting on the swing bench next to McCoy and scrubbing furiously at his eyes. "I asked him if he wants to die, and he said _yes_. He fucking said _yes_!"

"Well, what did you expect?" McCoy said bluntly. "I know I would be in his position. Hell, I'd be a lot more active about it than Spock is."

"Bones!"

McCoy snorted. "He wants to die, Jim. It's not unusual in amputee patients. Their life is ruined, they can't see any way of getting it back on track, and often - especially in military personnel - they lose contact with vast numbers of friends and colleagues. In Spock's case, he lost his partner as well."

"He didn't lose me - I'm right _here_, and..."

"And looking at the way you two have interacted, I would not guess for a _moment _that there had _ever _been anything between you."

Jim paused. "What?"

"Jim, you're reacting like a nervous friend. And not an especially _close _friend. Not his partner. I didn't want to ever ask this, but I will now: did the two of you ever formally break up?"

"No," Jim breathed. "He's...he's still my..."

"Is he? Because I don't think he knows that."

"You mean he...?"

"Spock didn't want you to come here," McCoy said flatly. "_We _wanted you to come here; Spock protested the idea. He didn't want to, and I quote, 'obligate the captain into wasting more time and resources on a thankless endeavour than he already has.'"

"He said _what_?"

"Yeah," McCoy said. "As far as he's concerned, the two of you are over - you were over the moment the rock touched him. Worse, that's the logic lining right up with his emotions. His human side is telling him that he's not worth it, that you don't want him around, and that he's of no use to anyone - and his logic is clicking right in there with it. For once, every part of him is in agreement. According to him, you don't - and you shouldn't - want him any more."

Jim choked.

"You need to stop running away from this whole damn situation, Jim. And then you've got to stop _him _running away from the _same _damn situation. Just a thought."

* * *

><p>Jim gave up, rose from the bed, pulled on his sweatpants and headed for the door.<p>

It was three o'clock in the morning, and the house was quieter than your average year-old grave, but he couldn't sleep. The shock of the day wouldn't _let _him sleep: that near-silent 'yes' reverberating through his skull like a drum solo.

_Yes_.

He slipped from the guest room that had been loaned to him, and across the hall into Spock's. The moonlight was spilling across the floor from the window, highlighting the misshapen lump in the bed - that brought a matching lump to Jim's throat. It was a single bed, but it might as well have been a king size for all the space Spock took up.

He was curled up on one side of the bed, twisted into himself like a wounded child. His arm was wrapped around until the hand clutched almost desperately at the remains - the _stump _- of the other, and Jim padded soundlessly across the carpet to brush his fingers over the white digits.

"Let go," he breathed, working them free and finally laying the loosened hand down by Spock's face. He did not, thankfully, have to touch the stump to do it - the long sleeve hung empty beneath it, as if reaching for the missing pieces.

Spock looked like a broken doll Jim's cousin had had when they were children.

He didn't know how long he knelt by the bed, stroking the remaining hand, and staring into the slack, thin face of the man he had almost lost. Hell, he _had _lost him - or part of him. Even if they got Spock through this, he was damaged forever, and there was nothing that Jim could do about it. And after how much he'd screwed up, how could he ask Spock to give him another chance?

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

On a whim, he crossed to the window and eased it open, letting a slightly-too-cool breeze ghost into the room. Quickly, before the colder air could touch Spock, he slipped into the bed beside him - made easy by months of too-narrow Starfleet bunks - and curled around his back, protecting him from the cold air.

He could feel his heartbeat, and, somehow, the trip-hammer brought tears to his eyes again.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered into the kiss he pressed to the back of Spock's neck.

He received no reply.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: D'aww. Lots of wonderful feedback. You guys and gals are kinda fucking awesome, you know that?**

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><p>Jim woke when the bedroom door opened, and the footsteps paused in the doorway. He twisted, blinking blearily eyes at Dr. McCoy, before yawning widely and settling back against Spock.<p>

"Well," McCoy drawled, "it's about damn time. He awake?"

"No," Jim mumbled, rubbing a hand over the nearest shoulder. "Spock? It's time to get up."

"Beyond time, actually," McCoy muttered as Spock stirred.

There was no denying the surprise in the Vulcan's dark gaze as he realised Jim was in the bed with him, but either his new reluctance to communicate with Jim or the presence of the doctor kept the question muted.

"Sorry," Jim whispered as McCoy rifled through the chest of drawers for a change of clothes for Spock. "I crawled in with you last night. You looked like you could use a cuddle, and I..." he flushed, and shrugged. "I could have used a cuddle too."

As if to emphasise his point, he tightened his grip on the lean - _thin _- torso in his arms, before untangling himself from the sheets and nearly falling out of the bed. Running a hand through his hair and stretching, he wondered vaguely if the prolonged contact hadn't helped his own mind and not just Spock's - he felt...oddly optimistic. Almost cheerful.

"Hold still," McCoy said, looming over Spock's prone body with the tricorder. Jim suspected he'd had it modified - tricorders couldn't usually fill in for a full-blown neuroscanner - but he didn't question the obvious breach of regulations regarding Starfleet property. He'd never argued a regulation breach that had worked in their favour before.

"Hey," Jim reached for Spock's hand, thumbing the knuckles lightly. "Mind if I help you in the shower today?"

Again, Spock was visibly surprised - McCoy schooled it better, but he looked like he was in agreement with Spock.

"You would not prefer to...?"

"I'd like to help," Jim said firmly. After all, they were both right. He had to stop running away from this. And if _he _stopped running away, then maybe Spock would as well. Stop running away from recovery, from adaptation, from _life_. "It's up to you. Do you mind?"

"...I...do not mind."

Jim grinned - he couldn't help it - and rubbed his thumb over the knuckles again before McCoy rolled his eyes.

"Showers do not involve molesting the patient in a bed," he observed crisply. "Go turn the water on, and fetch the chair. He's still Vulcan, and I'm not treating you for a sprained back if you try carrying him."

"Meh-meh-meh-meh," Jim mocked in a high falsetto, shifting off the bed and wandering into the ensuite to crank up the water. For all that mankind had come a long way, they had not yet perfect the art of instantly hot shower water, and there were very few better ways to get yourself a concussion than to try putting a Vulcan - even a wounded one - into a cold shower.

The bath had been set up specifically for Spock. The shower was in a bathtub that was attached to the wall, and a chair - an ordinary plastic chair - had been bolted into the bath. Two slip mats were positioned either side of it, and Jim suspected that the technique had been for either Pike or McCoy to kneel in the bath with Spock to help him, and lift him in and out.

As he tested the water temperature, McCoy's quiet voice filtered through the open door, and he found himself listening over the running water despite himself.

"You sure you're okay with this?"

There was no response - but McCoy's next sentence indicated that Spock hadn't zoned out or ignored him.

"He's worried. Don't you give me that look. I know he's been a complete fucking idiot, but he's worried all the same. He still cares about you."

More silence. The water was definitely hot enough, but Jim stayed where he was.

"Spock, he was in tears last night after he figured out you don't think life's worth living these days."

McCoy's tone was surprisingly gentle, despite the words, and Jim felt the guilty hot prickle behind his eyes again. He took a deep breath through his nose, and closed his eyes.

"Spock, just hear me out on this one. He's a kid. He's a genius kid, and got a set of brass balls the size of Georgia, but he's still a kid. He reacted badly - he made huge, horrendous mistakes and I don't doubt he's going to spend the rest of his life feeling guilty about the way you left the _Enterprise_. But here's the crunch: he still loves you. He was a shadow of himself without you, and I haven't seen Jim Kirk cry before the accident _ever_ - but I've seen it a good dozen times since. Including last night."

"He should not love me," came the quiet, low response, and it twisted something in Jim's gut.

"Love doesn't work like that," McCoy replied. "Whether he should or he shouldn't, he _does_."

There was a much longer silence this time - by the time McCoy spoke again, in a low, soothing voice, Jim had fought back the tears.

"You can't stop loving him either."

Jim swept through the bedroom, deliberately cheerful, ignoring the sombre lines of McCoy's face, and deliberately injected the breeziness into his voice when he said, "Chair in the hall?"

"Yeah," McCoy said, not taking his eyes off Spock's downturned face.

* * *

><p>Doubtless due to Vulcan reluctance to be touched, Spock was fairly independent in the shower once he'd been stripped and seated, so McCoy retreated downstairs to start breakfast and Jim shot back into his own room to change and wash his face. McCoy's low voice kept reverberating in his mind, and by the time he returned to the ensuite to Spock's room, his lip felt raw from their treatment between his teeth.<p>

"I do, you know," he said as he reappeared in the doorway of the bathroom, in time to see Spock drop the showerhead to dangle at the end of its line. "Ready to get out?"

"Affirmative," Spock murmured lowly. "You do...what?"

Jim waited until he had lined the wheelchair with towels and lifted Spock into it - a much easier task than getting him out - before replying. "I do still love you."

Spock paused in drying his chest. "Captain..."

"Drop it," Jim said quietly. "I'm not your captain. I'm _Jim_. I'm the same damn guy that made you come just by sucking on your fingers. I'm the same guy who shared your bed and your meals and pissed you the fuck off in private, but not so much that you walked away."

He dropped to kneel in front of the chair.

"You didn't walk away," he murmured. "And I didn't think I did, but I didn't walk towards you either, and that's just as bad. I didn't...I didn't grow a pair in time and that's hurt you. It's hurt you so badly - and me, too. I still love you, I miss you, and it _hurts_, seeing you like...like this..."

"Damaged?"

"Yes," Jim said - and Spock blinked in surprise when Jim's hand landed on the side of his face. "Up here. You're wounded up here, too. And that's...so much of that is my fault. And I'm so, so sorry. I've been a complete fucking prick, and I'm so sorry."

"...You should not..."

"Love you? Please," Jim snorted. "Last time you criticised a command decision of mine, you did it in front of Admiral Nogura and managed to call me a juvenile deliquent more closely related to monkeys than a typical human being. No, I probably shouldn't love you. It'll puncture my ego, my reputation and my charm. But I still do."

Spock stared at him wordlessly, eyes wide and...not calculating, exactly, but intense with something that Jim couldn't quite read. He felt as if he were caught somewhere between being examined and being interrogated.

"I'll do better now," Jim breathed, dropping his hand to the exposed stump of Spock's lost arm.

He had never touched it before, and now, ghosting his fingers over the skin stretched thin over the bone that ended sharply where it shouldn't, he catalogued the unnaturally smooth skin that told of a dermal regenerator, and the hairlessness that spoke of an artificial graft. The elbow was still there, bent to rest on the arm of the chair, but the arm ended not two inches below it, the remnants of muscle below the joint wasted and useless. The nerves, too, seemed to be gone - he could not feel the faint hum and buzz of Spock's thoughts.

His hand journeyed from the arm to the legs, both of them jutting unnaturally from the folds of the towel across Spock's lap. He pushed the fabric aside, pressing the palms of both hands flat against the sheer wall of skin and thick bone where McCoy had desperately cut to save Spock's life all those months ago. He could _feel _the thigh bone under the skin, feel the waste of unused muscles, and again the sheer, thin, false quality of artificial skin, produced in an emergency when waiting for a natural graft would lose the patient entirely...

He could taste the blood in his mouth, and the salt on his face, and hear the panic building up in his brain again from those endless days of waiting, waiting, waiting to hear if he'd lived or he'd died, waiting to know what McCoy had had to do, waiting for...

He leaned forward and pressed a trembling kiss to each amputation site - left leg, right leg, left arm - then buried his face in Spock's towel-covered lap - and _cried_.

He sobbed like a child, cried until the wheelchair shook under the force of it, cried until the tears soaked through the towel, cried until his throat and his face and his eyes and his _soul _hurt, hurt with a burning, burning pain that felt like a white-hot poker being thrust through his heart and exploding between his lungs.

He cried until Spock's hand came to rest on the nape of his neck, and then he cried some more.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: I've hurt my hands again, and am entering the region of "Holy shit! Deadines!" at university so I apologise a) for the late update, b) for the unpredictability of the next update, and c) for any mistakes. Oh yeah, and d) for the possible lack of review replies, depending on whether a report on the economics of Bolivia since 2005 goes well, or whether I am caught with the urge to shoot myself at midnight in the library.**

* * *

><p>It was a long day, perhaps because, for the first time, Jim spent it entirely by Spock's side.<p>

It was more difficult than he had imagined: the physiotherapy with McCoy was exhausting for all parties involved. Spock was clearly unhappy at having the doctor touch him at all, and seemed to think that the physiotherapy was in itself pointless. This, in turn, made Dr. McCoy irritable and tetchy, although he seemed to be trying to keep his harsh tongue in check.

Jim's newfound determination, however, did not waver, and what he did not directly help with the physiotherapy, he remained in the room and tried to engage Spock in conversation - which was harder than it looked.

It became clear to Jim that Ensign Chekov and Dr. McCoy were plotting against them, for the navigator put in an appearance shortly after lunch. Once again, he succeeded in bringing Spock out of his self-imposed isolation, with the allure of complex equations involving the transporter and the tractor beam.

It was during this period that McCoy drew Jim aside into the kitchen.

"We've got at least an hour," he said flatly, sitting Jim at the table. "Chekov was saying he's going to be spending all his research time for the next year on this idea, so you can bet he's not just dropping by randomly."

"I don't care if he wants to discuss poker techniques and porn, if he's getting Spock to talk then he's welcome," Jim muttered darkly, running both hands through his hair. "Shouldn't he be seeing a counsellor?"

McCoy snorted. "Of course he should. But I have no idea what constitutes counselling for Vulcans, or even if it would help. I'd hoped he'd be opening up to you a little more by this point, but..."

"Is he getting better?" Jim asked sharply.

"In telepathy terms? Yes. And by the way, you stick to sleeping in the same bed. There's a significant improvement from last night's readings."

Jim nodded, biting his lip. "But?"

"But psychologically? _Emotionally_? No," McCoy shrugged. "He's gotten himself stuck into this thought that he's worthless and we're all wasting our time on him, and I'm having serious difficulty breaking him out of it."

Jim rested his forehead in the palm of his and and glowered down at the table.

"Chekov might go some way towards it - God knows, Spock's always prided himself on his ability to contribute to the sciences, but..." McCoy shrugged. "It's not really any help if he thinks his _only _worth is that he's clever. Because out of the front line, he won't see the newest developments or contribute to them, and eventually he'll fall behind. You know how it is."

"Mm."

"We need him to realise that he's worth something to us - to all of us - and that whether he's disabled or not, we want him around," McCoy said, then snorted. "But that's such a _human _idea, I don't know if we _can _smash that into his stubborn skull."

"I don't understand how he doesn't _see _it," Jim said, not willing to able the slight crack in his voice. "I don't understand how he can't see how much he's..."

"What? Missed? Wanted? Please," McCoy snorted. "Out of the entire command crew - who, by the way, all know where he is! - it's only Chekov who's come to see him. You came because Pike and I coerced you into it, and he knows that. Uhura? Sulu? Hell, even Scotty, if he's been prised out of the engine room yet. The crew don't exactly step up to the plate to see how he's doing."

"And neither did I," Jim said in a low voice.

"Jim," McCoy said, his voice dropping. "What's going to happen at the end of shore leave?"

Jim's head jerked up to stare at McCoy. At the end of shore leave? When he...?

"He can't come with us?"

"There is no way - and I mean that, _no way _- that he's going to be mobile and fully functional by then," McCoy said. "We're looking at a year, at least, to get prosthetics working properly, and that's assuming he started tomorrow. And frankly, Jim, with this _life-isn't-worth-it _mentality, I would be very uncomfortable clearing him for duty."

"I know, but..." Jim floundered. "He's still in Starfleet! He's still an officer!"

"He's an officer on long-term medical leave."

"But he's still an officer!"

"Meaning that I'm his doctor, and they pay his medical fees, and there might be a job waiting for him when he's back on his feet. It _doesn't _mean he's allowed to roam any ship he pleases."

"But...!"

"You weren't married, Jim," McCoy's voice dropped even further. "Did the brass even know about the two of you?"

"No," Jim breathed. "The shit would have hit the fan, what with fraternisation in the higher ranks and everything. He'd have been transferred, and I would probably have been demoted."

"Right," McCoy said, "so there's no legal weight on your side here."

"No, but...shit, Bones, he has to come with us! We can't just leave him here!"

"There's only two options. Either you go and he stays here - or you both stay here."

Jim stared, then dropped his eyes to the table.

"And you're not going to do that, are you, Jim?"

"I...I..."

"Jim..."

"I'm going to go and see what they're talking about," he said abruptly, pushing up from the table. "I...could be interesting, you know?"

Then he was gone, and McCoy's outstretched hand dropped to the table with a heavy sigh.

* * *

><p>When Jim appeared in the doorway of the bedroom that night, Spock could not disguise his surprise. When Jim proceeded to close the door behind him and perch on the end of the bed, looking remarkably childlike in his cross-legged position, the curiosity on Spock's face was plain to see.<p>

"Jim, why...?"

"One day you'll believe me when I say I still love you," Jim said flatly. "Look, you need it and I need it, and it's doing the both of us good. But I wanted to ask: why haven't you got any prosthetics yet?"

"...I saw no need to waste time and expense..."

"In getting better?"

"I was able to perform my duties without them."

"No, you weren't. Because your duties were on the _Enterprise_, with me and Bones and Chekov and everyone else. Not on that shitty little research station. So why didn't you get them?"

"I did not...I _do not_...entertain the notion that..."

"You don't think you'll ever be back," Jim finished in a low tone.

"That is...correct."

"Well, you're wrong. I'm not just dumping you like some broken toy. If you start using prosthetics now, then Bones says you could be mobile in about a year. A year isn't that long; you could rejoin the ship afterwards, and..."

"That would not be possible."

"Why not?"

"The _Enterprise _is a frontline exploratory ship with a correspondingly high chance of injury and death to crewmembers. Along with the _Copernicus _and the _Artemis_, it is a requirement for serving aboard such vessels that a crewmember has no long-term or permanent injury that classifies as a disability."

Jim felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. Regulations simply had not occurred to him; he had known disabled cadets in the Academy and it had simply not occurred to him that the regulations might differ from ship to ship. And Spock would know the regulations; he knew them inside and out.

"That's...how in the hell is that fair?"

"It is perfectly understandable; the risks involved in serving aboard such a starship require the minimisation of further risks. A disabled crew member losing their mobility or ability to serve in a crisis is higher than that of an able-bodied crewmember and therefore it is only prudent that disabled officers and crewmembers serve on less risky assignments."

"That's not understandable, that's discrimination."

"It is..."

"It's fucking stupid!" Jim exploded. "If part of the hull crushes my leg, I'm just as disabled as you are in that crisis! How in the hell...?"

"I am merely reciting the regulations to you. I do not pretend to understand the reason for their construction. It is likely that, as there are very few disabled personnel in Starfleet, they were not objected to when they were put in place."

"Well, I'm objecting," Jim spat.

"There is no need to..."

"Fuck that," Jim said darkly. "They're screwing you out of a post on the _Enterprise_, screwing me out of the best First Officer in the Fleet, and screwing the ship out of a fucking _brilliant _scientist, and..."

Spock looked faintly uncomfortable at the praise, and Jim sighed heavily.

"You really have no idea, do you?" he asked. "You really haven't the slightest idea of how amazing you are."

"Were."

"_Are_," Jim insisting, unfolding himself from the end of the bed and crawling up it on hands and knees. "Are. You _are _brilliant, you _are _amazing, and I don't care if it makes me sound like a fucking pathetic little girl. I still love you, and I'm going to make you believe me if it's the last thing I do."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: As anyone who follows my site will know, I am stupidly happy right now. Everyone smile. SMILE, DAMN IT. Also: fanfiction, why u no let me reply to reviews? D:**

* * *

><p>And just like that, things...changed.<p>

For one, Spock stopped objecting to Jim's assistance. It was such a minor thing - because Spock so rarely _voiced _objections - that it took a couple of days before Jim noticed, but there it was. Whether it was being helped in the shower, or being brought food, or even the one time Jim steeled himself to physically help with McCoy's therapy, Spock had stopped objecting to it.

And then there was the eating. Jim hadn't dared to get involved in those catfights - to be honest, Spock had never been all that good at remembering to eat _before_ the accident, never mind now. So when McCoy had gone off on one about his lack of appetite and his weight loss, Jim had wisely stayed out of it. But then Spock stopped resisting - or whatever it was he did - and started _eating_. Properly eating. Every meal that McCoy put in front of him was gone, and all of it too.

He was still quiet, but Chekov was also still dropping by every other day, and so Jim figured that he was doing his best. Particularly on the memorable occasion when Chekov arrived staggering under the weight of an enormous arrangement of Vulcan flowers "vith regards from Heekaru!" Spock had looked slightly alarmed for a moment, but had recovered his composure very quickly and asked the ensign to pass on his thanks for the gift.

Jim, frankly, was overjoyed, and he was pretty sure Spock could tell. He was sticking to McCoy's suggestion - crawling into bed with Spock every night. They didn't do anything but sleep, but Jim was sure it was responsible for his own improved moods, and Spock's sudden veering towards recovery.

They didn't discuss the issue of regulations again - Jim was too wary of rocking the boat and, in any case, McCoy's predictions of a year stood no matter what the regulations said. Jim knew that he wouldn't win any fight demanding Spock be allowed back on the ship _without _prosthetics. So he dropped that line of conversation - though it lingered in his head - and he concentrated his efforts on Spock _now_, rather than Spock in the _future_.

But despite Jim's improved mood, and Spock's improving demeanour, McCoy was not so pleased.

"Frankly?" he said when Jim questioned him on it. "I'm suspicious. This is too much, too fast. I'm not convinced he's doing it for _his _sake - but for your peace of mind."

"And if he is?" Jim asked. "I mean, he's still doing it. He's getting there."

"Sure," McCoy said, "and when you go back into space without him?"

Jim's brain stuttered.

"Exactly," McCoy said grimly. "There'll be a backslide, you mark my words. He won't keep this up when you're gone."

"But..."

"And you will."

"What?" Jim blinked.

"Go back into space. You will. You know it, I know it - and I don't blame you, Jim. Spock might bang on about destiny now and then but in one respect, he's right: you're meant for space. Even in the Academy, you weren't happy. You weren't happy until you were in space, and every time you're grounded again, it pulls at you until you have to go back up there or die trying," McCoy shrugged. "I can't see the attraction myself, but it's in you. Space in your blood."

Jim swallowed. Hard. "Bones, I...I just...I _shouldn't _just..."

"If we were talking six months, then maybe I'd pressure you into staying. But we're talking years, Jim. Maybe forever. He might never get back into space, and _you know I'm right_."

Yeah. Yeah, Jim knew.

* * *

><p>Space had always been <em>Jim's<em>.

Out in Riverside, in the fields behind the house, you could see entire galaxies spread out for the taking, and every season brought new views, new stars, new worlds to find and explore and _discover_. He'd wanted to be everything, as a child - a scientist, a captain, a diplomat, even - when he was about thirteen - a bulky security officer with a girl in every spaceport.

But more than that, space had kept him alive.

There had never been anything in Iowa for Jim - no girl, no boy, no mother, certainly no father, no brother - or at least, not for long - and no friends. There hadn't been anyone at all to keep him there - if anything, between his stepfather and his mother, he'd come to hate Iowa with a passion only reserved for something you _should _love, but don't.

And he had always believed he'd never be anything. He was smart, sure, but so what? Smart didn't get you anywhere. Smart didn't find you success; ass-kissing found you success, and Jim had never been all too good at that. By the time he was fifteen, he knew damn well that he wasn't going to be anything but a waster.

He had stared too long into space, and the abyss had stared right back at him.

And didn't like what it found.

Without that strange, completely ridiculous _love _for space - bred into him, through generations of ancestors on both sides of the family being involved in the Federation, and before that the pre-warp space programmes, and before _that _ordinary, human military organisations...

Without that, Jim would have drowned himself in drink in Iowa, and quite probably died on the road, off his bike.

But then Pike had appeared, with somewhat irritating talk of his father and his destiny and _space_. Jim had wanted to blow him off - initially had - but _space_...

Space had called to him.

McCoy was right: Jim hadn't been particularly happy at the Academy, but there, he'd had a goal. A goal that he could quite possibly achieve, for the first time. If he did it, if he got through the Academy, then space would be waiting for him. He could go - find those worlds, those aliens, those cultures, those wide expanses of the abyss that had stared haughtily down at him all those years ago, and look it _right back_.

And when he'd found it...

When he'd got out there...

The circumstances hadn't been the best. He'd fought for his life, for his friends' lives, for _everyone's _lives. He'd clung to existence desperately, done stupid things - no matter which way you looked at it, pissing off a Vulcan was _stupid _- but...

All the time he'd felt..._better_.

For the first time in his life, he'd felt like he was worth something. As though he could do this. He felt at home, out among the stars, three feet of hull plate between himself and oblivion. He'd been safe out there, somehow - his own demons couldn't follow him into space. They were ground-bound, they were on Earth, away from _him_.

He'd found friendship, self-worth, companionship, _love _- out there.

And here...

It was already beginning to happen. Jim had been tense since he'd landed, and he couldn't pretend it was all to do with Spock's state and his own guilt about it. He couldn't - because it wasn't. The itch was starting - that drive to get the ship and _go_, return to the safe darkness of the stars and escape from Earth, from the planet that held everything that was _bad _about Jim Kirk...

McCoy was right.

He wasn't going to stay - and he hated himself for it already.

* * *

><p>Two days later, McCoy reached a decision.<p>

"I'm staying here."

He said it quite abruptly. It was late in the evening; he and Jim were sat out on the patio. Spock was attempting meditation before retiring to bed, and Pike gone to dinner and a show with one of his former officers, a razor-sharp woman that didn't seem to actually have a real name.

"What?"

"I'm staying here," McCoy said. "If you can't stay with him, then I will. He's going to need someone if this backslide isn't going to destroy him."

Jim swallowed and felt a fine tremor take itself up in his hands. "Bones, I..."

"I know, kid," McCoy's face softened, and he reached over to squeeze Jim's shoulder. "I know you want to. But you know as well as I do that it'd make you damn miserable. And the more stable his telepathy gets, the more he's going to pick up on it, and it won't do either of you a damn bit of good."

"I should stay..."

"We should do a lot of things," McCoy said, "but sometimes we have to put our own health first, too. Even now."

Jim bit his lip. "I'll...I'll stay in touch. Properly. Make him accept my calls, won't you?"

"Course I will," McCoy said. "And anyway, like you said, he's still an officer, and I'm the best qualified doctor in the Fleet for him right now. They'll probably thank me for not making them find another specialist."

Jim's smile was wan.

"And Jim..."

"I'm not letting this regulation _bullshit _lie," Jim said suddenly.

"Jim..."

"It's just...it's fucking stupid," he spat. "Tell me, Bones. As a _doctor_. If Spock had functioning prosthetics, and he was practised in using them, could he serve?"

"On the _Enterprise_?"

"Yeah."

McCoy shrugged. "Probably. But don't quote me on that. There'd have to be an extensive risk assessment for it - and to my knowledge, there's never been one."

"Exactly," Jim said grimly. "There's never been one. And I'm going to get one _done_."

"Jim, that'll take..."

"I don't care what it'll take," Jim snapped. "I abandoned him once, and I'm not going to do it again. And if I _can't _get him back on the ship...then I'll at least get a patrol ship. I'll...I'll stop going so far."

McCoy sighed heavily, and shook his head. "I don't know, Jim. Would you be happy with that?"

"I'm not happy without him," Jim said flatly. "So what have I got to lose?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: Where'd everybody go?**

**Further Notes: I'm going to stay with relatives for a few days. Due to the rampaging, hardline Catholicism over there, I am not going to be rocking the religious boat by writing slash for a science fiction show in front of them. So there will be another pause. Sorry!**

* * *

><p>Because of Spock, Jim hadn't much gotten used to <em>paperwork <em>and _arrangements _- because Spock had always done it for him. Crew rosters, transfer requests and personnel demands, quarter assignments, the usual _bitching _that accompanied room reassignments when so-and-so finally decided that they simply _couldn't _take being in the room next to Ensign Matthews any more...the very first time Jim had ever looked at it, he'd been newly-promoted, and Lieutenant Commander Roberts (the only member of his crew, aside from Spock, to have worked on ships and in command before) had taken pity on him and done it herself.

And then he'd delegated the work to Spock, because, frankly, James T. Kirk was far too awesome to waste his time on petty things and, even more frankly, Spock was Vulcan and didn't _care _how boring a job was - he just _did _it. And probably better than Jim would have done.

But now, Spock couldn't.

He was officially deactivated, for a start, and to follow it up, Jim wasn't going to pester him with this crap for the world right now. So he took to it himself, wading through padds and requests and _forms _until he thought his eyeballs were going to bleed, and jealousy wondering if McCoy hadn't been smarter than him in sticking to medicine rather than command. Physical therapy with a very reluctant Vulcan had to be better than this. At least they could have an argument.

Except, you know, for the lack of arguing.

Jim couldn't wrap his head around it. In the following week, slogging through the paperwork, he was present (if inactive) for all of Spock's physical therapy - _and there had been no arguments_. McCoy's rare bedside manner was out in full-force - he spoke in a low, soothing tone, his accent was thicker than it was normally, and he was ridiculously professional.

And Spock would respond to any questions with a simple 'yes' or 'no' and that would be it.

They weren't crossing swords - and frankly, that just creeped Jim out.

Spock and McCoy had never _not _crossed swords. From the moment they'd met, they'd taken an instant...well, perhaps not _dislike_, but they weren't especially friendly with each other. Sure, they were rarely actually _malicious _with their jabs and parries - Jim would have stopped it if they'd gone too far - but they weren't exactly best buddies just having a laugh either.

And now they were neither - Spock was the perfect patient, and McCoy the perfect doctor. No humour - inappropriate or otherwise - and no name-calling, and no banter whatsoever.

The physical therapy sessions were almost silent, and Jim didn't like them at all.

* * *

><p>It was Spock who broke the stalemate over their future.<p>

Jim had been unwilling to bring it up too much - he felt as though he were treading on eggshells, and that any wrong move would destroy Spock's progress. He felt terrified to bring up anything at all relating to the _Enterprise_, or their careers, or even their future. He hadn't been willing to go there.

Except...when you eliminated _space_, what was there? What was left to discuss? Everything was wrapped up in it - they had too much to discuss to ignore it, and too little else to occupy them.

And so it was Spock who broke the stalemate, late one night with Jim wrapped around his back, and breaking the heavy silence with a talent that all Vulcans seemed to possess in one form or another - that of cutting right to the heart of an issue.

"When does your leave come to an end?"

Jim stiffened before he quite realised it, and breathed out slowly, trying to relax again. "Middle of next month, when the engine inspection's done. Scotty's been _livid _about that."

Spock completely ignored the deflection. "Dr. McCoy informed me that he is intending to remain here."

"Yeah," Jim tensed his arms in a slight hug. "He's going to stay here with you. He's already filed the transfer paperwork to Starfleet Medical."

"While I appreciate Dr. McCoy's dedication, I..."

"He's staying," Jim said flatly. "He's your doctor. He knows you best. He's going to stay with you and get you back on your feet..." _Oh shit. Bad choice of words! _"...and I'm going to file for a reassessment of the disability service regulations while we're doing milk runs and playing diplomat."

Spock paused. Jim could almost hear the cogs turning in his head, eyeing the situation up and calculating which angle to use first.

"It would be...detrimental to Dr. McCoy's career to have him remain here, and..."

"It would be detrimental to _your health _for him to come back into space."

"I am not comfortable with the idea that you will be on the front line without his...expertise."

Jim hesitated, wondering whether to lighten the mood or carry on with a path that would probably lead to an argument - and then his mouth did its usual thing, and carried on without input from his brain.

"Yes, well, I'm not comfortable with leaving you here without said expertise," he said waspishly. "I know what you're doing, you know."

Spock stiffened in his arms.

"You're going through all the motions - the eating, the physio, the _talking_, the tolerating our company - because you want me to stop worrying and get on with my life and get back out there. You're just _waiting _for me to ditch you again, and then you're going to go back to trying to _destroy _yourself. It might be passive as fuck, but that's what you've been doing."

"I..."

"You think I'm going to let you do that? I'm not letting you throw your life away over this! I'm not letting you just...just...just lie down and _die_ because of some stupid fucking _accident_! You don't get to do that! You don't get to just _give up _and throw it all away!"

"And you do?" Spock did not raise his voice - of course he didn't - but there was a sudden undercurrent of steel that hadn't been there in a long time.

"What?" Jim snapped, sitting up and glowering down at him. "What the hell does that mean? Look at me! What the hell does that mean?"

"You are prioritising my return to the _Enterprise _over opportunities that would benefit yourself and your crew. You know there are new exploratory missions into the Beta Quadrant, and yet I have heard you in discussion with Admiral Pike: you are determined to keep the ship within range of Earth and use your time in a fruitless endeavour to change regulations that have been in place since humans were a pre-warp species."

"Of course I fucking am!" Jim exploded. "What the _hell_, Spock? What if something happens - what if you _need _me, and I'm out in the goddamn _Beta _Quadrant? You think I would do that?"

"It did not concern you so greatly before," Spock replied coldly.

Jim gaped. "I..._what_? So that's what this is about? Spock - fuck, I admit it, _I fucked up_! What more do you want? I fucked up! I did a stupid fucking thing and now I'm..."

"And now you are acting out of a sense of guilt over your perceived mistake..."

"_Perceived_?"

"...and are jeapordising your career, as well as those of your subordinates _and _the possibility of greater scientific discovery beyond the Alpha Quadrant, over..."

"Over _you_! Over my..."

"Yes. Over me."

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled heavily. "I don't believe this."

"You..."

"Shut up," he said flatly. "I don't fucking believe this. This isn't about my career, or my crew, or even _your _career. This is about you and me."

"This has always been about us," Spock agreed.

"No, let me finish," Jim snapped. "This is about you thinking that I should dump you. This is about you thinking that you're a waste of my time. This is about you thinking _that you are worth nothing now that you're hurt_," he was vaguely aware that he was shaking, "and that I should be cutting my losses and going back into space _and forgetting you were ever there in the first place_."

"It...is logical that..."

"And let me tell you something," Jim hissed. "If I had grown a fucking pair, and fucking _supported you _like I should have done - don't give me that look! _Like I should have done_, then you wouldn't even be _entertaining _that thought. Maybe you would be worried about my career, but it would be about _my career_, not about whether or not I should _dump you _like you're fucking worthless!"

Spock took a sharp breath through his nose. "As I am incapable of providing..."

"_I don't fucking care_!" Jim shouted. Something clattered in the next room. "God _damn you_, Spock, get it through your head! I made a fucking mistake! I made a huge fucking _mistake_! I was_ wrong_! I should have been there, I should have _always _been there and _I fucked up when I wasn't_! It wasn't _right _- it isn't _right_, or _logical_, that I drop you just because of - of _this_! I still lo-!"

The door shot open and McCoy barrelled into the room, face twisted in anger. "What the hell is going on in here?" he barked. "It's two in the _morning_, you goddamn Iowan _hick_!"

Jim made a noise like an angry cat with its tail caught in a door and shot up from the bed.

"I need some fucking air," he snarled, shouldering past McCoy and thundering down the stairs heavily.

"I'll see to him," Pike's voice drifted in from the hallway, and McCoy shut the bedroom door behind him.

"Alright, Spock," he said, sighing heavily. "Let's you and me have a little chat, huh?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes: So, some people complained that I couldn't leave it there. This will not alleviate such complaints, but fuck it. Have another chapter. Now this really is the last one for a while!**

* * *

><p>Pike found Jim sitting out on the front porch some ten minutes later, redressed in his jeans and jacket from earlier in the day, head in his hands and breathing deeply and deliberately evenly through his nose - a breathing technique taught to all command cadets for when they were tempted to punch an underling but, for obvious reasons, couldn't. Pike had used it himself a few times - and frequently on Jim Kirk.<p>

"Come on," he said, hooking an arm under Jim's elbow and hauling him to his feet. "Come with me."

"Where?" Jim said, his voice nowhere near as steady as his breathing.

"Out."

They took the aircar to a quiet bar on the outskirts of the Academy grounds. It wasn't usually frequented by cadets; more, it was the provider of poison to the instructors: a place where they could vent their frustration at the growing number of idiots in Starfleet, as evidenced by such-and-such a class and such-and-such a moron who was going to get such-and-such a body part blown off, up or in before she/he/it/they graduated.

It was, therefore, a quiet bar where overheard conversations were, by mutual and silent agreement, ignored by anyone who might hear them, and the bar staff feigned prolonged, continued and (if true) somewhat retarded ignorance of the identities of the customers or the people they bitched about.

Jim and Pike didn't talk until they were seated with their drinks, in a dark corner of the bar and well out of earshot of any other patrons or staff - and then Pike didn't break the silence until Jim had knocked back a decent few swallows of his drink.

"So," he said, "fancy telling me what the argument was about?"

"No," Jim said flatly.

"Tough shit."

"I said no," Jim returned flatly. "It was personal."

"I think we both know by now that personal doesn't mean anything in this job," Pike said.

"Well, this time it does," Jim snapped.

"Uh huh," Pike said, and frowned. "Jim, does it ever occur to you _why _I'm involved? Don't get me wrong: I like to think that both you and Spock are personal friends of mine, and I wouldn't hesitate to help out either of you if I could. But I'm loaning out part of my house on a potentially permanent basis to not just Spock, but Leonard and you as well."

"You..." Jim swallowed, and waved a hand vaguely. "You know."

"I know where Spock is right now," Pike prodded gently.

"But you didn't _lose_..."

"I lost the _use _of my legs, Jim. And they didn't damn well figure out how to fix it for a long time. When you get that kind of diagnosis - _it could be permanent and we just don't know _- then you know what? You don't see much difference between losing the use of the leg, and losing the leg entirely."

Jim took a deep swallow from the glass and started breathing deep-and-even again.

"I know where Spock is," Pike said. "I can't pretend I know _exactly _what he's thinking, but I get the gist of it, because I thought it too."

"Chris..."

"Hear me out," Pike said flatly. "It wasn't quite the same dilemma - Number One and I hadn't served together for over a year and a half. I had my teaching post, and she was in the Laurentian system for most of that time. But...after Nero, she came haring back to see me at the hospital. And I was furious with her, Jim. Bad enough my career was over without Number One going and throwing hers away."

"But..."

"And then she was talking about taking a teaching post herself, getting a patrol ship - the whole nine yards. The core of it being: she was trying to stay here, with me, and support me. Settle down and be a goddamn wife to a crippled man."

Jim opened his mouth, and Pike cut him off yet again.

"And you know what, Jim? We'd talked about this kind of thing long before Nero. When I took the teaching post so I'd be in line for the _Enterprise_, Number One made noises about taking one too. But she wouldn't have been happy - she's not an instructor, Jim. You've met the woman: she can't tolerate fools, and any officer thinks a brand new cadet is a fool, whether they can learn or not."

Jim was forced to smirk at the idea of the very sharp, ridiculously clever Number One teaching cadets. He'd met her once, as a captain of a year and a half, and she'd still been ball-shrinkingly scary. Even the cocky little shit he'd been wouldn't have dared take her on in the Academy.

"Yeah," Pike agreed, catching his expression. "But when I was injured, suddenly she wanted to be there, and stood her ground like she hadn't over the teaching post."

"She wanted to support you!" Jim exclaimed hotly. "She just wanted - I just want to help him! I just want to..."

"Yeah," Pike said quietly. "I know that, Jim. Part of me knew it then, but the bigger part of me was asking, _why in the hell is such a brilliant woman trying to stick to a guy like me_? We've all had that idea. When you fall in love, and they say they love you back, part of you asks _why_. Well, that part came back. I was damaged, crippled, and at the time, unlikely to ever get out of that wheelchair. And she was still perfect, and claiming she'd stay with me - and that part of me was saying it wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to expect such a wonderful, brilliant, unstoppable woman to lower herself to my level forever."

Jim's mouth worked silently for a moment before he shook his head. "I don't...I still..."

"And I'll bet you anything that's along the lines of what Spock's thinking now," Pike said quietly. "He sees you as God's gift to the universe, flaws and all. And whatever self-esteem he _had _has taken a severe blow with this - anyone's would. So why would you stay with him? And even if you did, how on earth could he, now, make you happy and give you everything you want and need?"

"_Because I love him_," Jim hissed, the blue in his eyes suspiciously bright for the lack of light in the bar. "I love him! Goddamnit, Chris, I love him! Some fucking _accident _isn't going to change that!"

Pike shrugged. "Just...give him time, Jim. You _have _done a complete one-eighty here. I'm willing to bet he thought he'd been dumped when you let him go without a murmur; hell, _I_ thought you'd broken up with him. And then you reappear further down the line - much further - claiming that you still love him and you're going to fight to keep the two of you together?"

Jim's head relocated back to his hands, and the rhythmic breathing began again.

"Jim. Look at me."

He glanced up; the movement let a single tear streak down his tired face.

"When you say you still love him, I believe you," Pike said quietly. "That guilt you carry around with you, and the look on your face when you discuss the disability regulations? I believe you. But it's going to take you a lot longer to convince him."

* * *

><p>It was past four in the morning when they returned to the house, and most of the lights were on. Jim had never felt so tired in his life, but he was somehow still restless, his leg jiggling almost spastically in the aircar, and bouncing up the wooden steps of the front porch as though he'd just had a twelve-hour nap, instead of a decent amount of sleep deprivation.<p>

"How do I convince him, Chris?" he asked as they approached the front door, and they both paused.

"The same way you did the first time around," Pike said slowly. "Time, persistence, repetition and action."

Jim swallowed. "But if I'm not here..."

Pike sighed. "Jim. I didn't tell you what happened."

Jim stared at him.

"Number One went back into space," Pike said. "I don't leave Earth these days - no places for limping Admirals on starships. But she's still out there. She left Earth for space again not three months into my treatment, and long before anybody knew if I'd walk again. But we worked it out."

"How?" Jim croaked.

Pike shrugged. "Persistence. The same way you break through any mentality. You stab at it until it gives up of its own accord. You don't have to be _here _to be persistent."

"It just..." Jim shrugged, hunching in on himself slightly. "It feels wrong, you know? It just feels...wrong to turn tail and go back out there when he _can't_."

"I'll give you another bit of advice, Jim. We all know - everyone knows - that you're one of those people born to explore. For you it's the stars; in the past, it was the sea, or the land, or wherever. But you're one of them. If you stay here, out of whatever good intentions you may have, then eventually you'll come to resent the situation. And the situation is _Spock_. Deliberately or not, he'll be the reason you don't go to space and eventually, you'll come to resent him for it."

"I wouldn't!"

"You would, Jim. You can watch that pattern play itself out over and over again with various people. But you'll come to resent him - and when you do, you can kiss any relationship with him goodbye. Don't let this ground the both of you, because grounding _both _of you will _destroy_ both of you."

Another silence, as uneasy as the car ride, fell over them as Pike let them quietly in and turned out the downstairs lights. The upper floor still burned bright, and the door to Spock's room was firmly closed.

"Go on," Pike said, nudging Jim in the right direction. "Start your campaign."

"What if...?"

"Since when has Jim Kirk believed in no-win scenarios?"

Jim laughed - a hollow, dry sound that barely made itself heard before it faded away - and opened the bedroom door.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes: My brain is currently obsessed with another project (also insanely depressing) so this was a little forced out, but I just couldn't leave you guys waiting any longer. I apologise for the wait as it is. Also, for those of you who like taking an emotional beating, watch out for _Against the Dying of the Light_. Coming soon - all eight chapters and rising of it.**

* * *

><p>"Let's you and me have a little chat, huh?"<p>

Spock's lips tightened before he exerted a conscious effort to smooth his displeased expression away. McCoy ignored him, settling on the end of the bed that Jim had so hurriedly vacated, and leaning back against the frame comfortably.

"You want to tell me what caused a shouting match at two in the morning?" McCoy asked, mock-casually.

"I asked when Jim's leave will be over."

"Ah," McCoy said. "Yeah, the two of you haven't really discussed that, have you?"

"Jim is exhibiting great foolishness in discarding his career in favour of..."

"In favour of you?" McCoy asked gently.

"...Yes."

McCoy shrugged. "You know something, Spock? I agree with you."

Spock looked up sharply at that, for once allowing his surprise to bleed through into his face, and McCoy chuckled.

"Yeah, you and me agreein' on somethin'. I know," he said. "But I agree with you there. Jim needs to go back into space and get on with it. It won't do either of you any favours whatsoever if he doesn't."

"Christopher is also in agreement. It is only Jim that differs."

"As usual," McCoy observed.

"Then why does he not...?"

"Because Jim's as stubborn as a goddamn mule, that's why," McCoy said lightly. "You know how much I pressured him into comin' to see you before you transferred off to the Vulcan hospital? I don't think I've been so damn sleep-deprived since my little girl was teethin'."

Spock said nothing.

"Jim'll go," McCoy said. "He'll go, in the end, but he won't like it."

"He does not have to like it," Spock informed him crisply.

"Now, see, we might agree that he has to go. But I don't think we're agreeing on _why_."

"I fail to see how..."

"Shut up and humour me," McCoy said, with no bite behind the words at all. "Now, I want Jim to go because he'll be restless, irritable and miserable as all hell with a ground posting. He'll end up resenting you, me, the system and the whole city while he's at it. It'll do the two of you no favours at all, and eventually he'll go anyway, but with a whole lot more poison in him."

Spock eyed him blandly.

"Now you want him to go," McCoy said, "because you don't want him to watch you suffer and struggle. You don't want to tie him to a dead weight, or to a man who can't, in your opinion, give Jim everything that he needs. You want to cut him loose so that he'll be free to start again, without you, which we both know isn't going to happen if he stays here. Am I right?"

There was a long, long pause before Spock murmured, "As both of your stated reasons result in Jim being happier with and within his future than his remaining here, I fail to see how we are differing in opinion, Dr. McCoy."

"Yeah, okay, point," McCoy shrugged. "'Cept I think I got a better handle on this, Spock, because without _you_, he's miserable as all hell."

Spock said nothing.

"This is the bit you didn't see," McCoy stated quietly. "I watched Jim command that ship, exactly as he will be doing in a month or two, and I watched him do it without you. I watched him trying to contact you and getting nothing; I watched him begging other people to do it for him; I watched him struggle with your replacements on the staff roster, and I watched him struggle with his free time without you to fill it up. That man was _miserable _without you. I treated him for sleep-deprivation and nightmares, and every now and then, I had to force him out of his quarters so he'd socialise with _anyone_. He was a mess without you."

Spock opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"Now let's add on the guilt," McCoy said quietly. "He was damn guilty. He was terrified that what he did - stayin' away from you like that - had done damage, and you know something, Spock? He's still guilty. Because he was right."

"I..."

"You have self-esteem issues," McCoy said, "as long as both of _my _arms. Your self-image is in the gutter, your psyche tests at the moment wouldn't pass a Starfleet test if you paid off the most crooked psychiatrist in the place, and you're only not classed as suicidal and a danger to yourself because you're too apathetic to be_ actively_ suicidal. I expected that; I honestly expected that. No amputee patient _isn't _those things for at least a little while after the surgeries. But you? You're in a bad way."

"I fail to see how..."

"And it's all wrapped up in Jim," McCoy continued blithely. "Suddenly, you're not worth his attention. Suddenly, you're not able to protect him - don't give me that look, they don't keep us _completely _in the dark about Vulcan mentality, you know - and you're not able to look after him. _He _has to look after _you_, which leaves him vulnerable, according to that hobgoblin mindset of yours."

"That 'hobgoblin mindset' happens to be biological truth."

"Yeah, and you know what? A hell of a lot of humans have it too. Hell, _I _have it. I broke my leg when my wife was pregnant, and the whole time I was in the cast, I was furious with myself for leaving her vulnerable. What if she needed me? And it was ridiculous - we weren't in space, or even in San Francisco. We were in the ass-crack of Georgia, and the local population was us and my in-laws. Nothing would have happened anyway - but I _hated _myself for it."

"Then you must be able to understand..."

"I _do _understand - but it doesn't make either of us _right _about that. Being his partner isn't like getting a job description, and you'll get fired if you don't live up to it. It's all your self-esteem - you don't feel like you can live up to Jim's needs and expectations any more, and so you're not only waiting for him to dump you, but trying to push him into it."

Spock clenched his jaw, and _almost _frowned.

"You want Jim to go into space not just so he won't have to see you suffer, but also so he'll start to forget about you, and eventually drop you altogether. And then when he's let go of you entirely...so will you."

Spock dropped his gaze to his lap, and McCoy sighed heavily.

"This has done a hell of a number on you," he muttered. "Spock. I'm a doctor, not a dumbass hick like Jim can be. And even he's worked out what it is you're trying to do. As your doctor, I can't let that happen - and as your _friend_, I won't. I'm on your side about Jim going back into space - he needs to. But I'm on Jim's side about _you_. God help me, I never thought I'd say this, but you are _far _too valuable to be lost to some jacked-up idiotic notion of worthlessness."

Spock said nothing, and would not look up at the doctor again.

"It'll take time for you to accept that, but that's the God's-honest-truth, right there," McCoy said quietly. "You're a good man, an exceptional officer, and if you can not only tolerate but _love _Jim Kirk, then you're just about eligible for sainthood as it stands. You're a pain in the goddamn ass, but you're our pain in the ass, and I don't think you've learned this about humans yet, but we're pretty damn stubborn about _keeping _our valuable pains in the ass."

The sound of a car engine thrummed and faded outside.

"Jim will go back into space, and you and I will stay here. But you have to let me help you, Spock," McCoy coaxed. "I can't force you to use prosthetics or shore up mentally. I can't force you better, only stable. And stable isn't enough."

Silence.

"Spock. Do you _want _to die?"

"I..." Spock paused, throat working loosely for a moment or two. "I do not wish to live like this."

"That's different," McCoy said. "And if you let me in, just a bit, then we can rebuild from here. Come on. It's the logical thing to do."

"The logical thing," Spock said waspishly, "would have been to terminate my life after the accident, and not to waste numerous resources on sustaining a life that has lost value."

McCoy shrugged, and leaned forward to tap Spock's forehead. It got him a dark look. "Your body might not be worth much on the market these days, but that brain you're housing certainly is. And nobody ever tell you that _you're _in your brain? Makes it damn important, really."

"I am no longer capable of performing my duties, or my...wants," he finished, in a low and distinctly defeated tone.

"No," McCoy agreed, "but we can get around that. And if you want to wait until Jim's out the way and can't insist on watching every difficult moment, then we can do that. But we can get around it, Spock. Trust me. I'm a damn good doctor, and I can get you around that. But you have to let me _try_."

There was a long, aching silence, in which McCoy knew something was going to turn. Here, he would lose a patient, or regain a friend. Spock's answer here would decide everything - his fate, his life, and much of Jim's fate and life as well.

At half past two in the morning, they reached the junction of the whole sorry situation, and, like every other junction before it, Jim was not there to see it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes: This didn't want to happen. But I made it. And now I'm going to crash. Cheers, guys.**

* * *

><p>Jim didn't sleep. He lay silent and brooding, obsessed with his thoughts, churning around in the middle of his skull like tempests in that proverbial teacup - and depressed that their volume didn't wake Spock, the way even a tendril of coherency would have done before - until dawn began to inch through the windows, and he faintly heard movement in the rest of the house, and then he <em>felt <em>movement as Spock stirred under his arm.

"Hey," Jim said into the back of his head.

Spock stilled.

Jim left him where he was: sometimes, it was easier to talk without having to look people in the face. And frankly, over the years, he'd gotten used to the back of Spock's head. It was _always _easier to talk about the big things to the back of people's heads. At least that never changed. "I'm not sorry about last night."

"...I see."

"I'm not," Jim repeated flatly.

"Then why bring it up?"

Jim snorted and said, "Elephant in the room is gone now. But I'm not going to say that I'm sorry, because I'm not. We should have talked it out _rationally_, but I won't take back anything I said."

"I see."

"I'm not going to let you do that. You don't get to just slip away. I don't care how long it takes, or how much things have to change, but you and me? We're getting through this," and though his words were angry, his tone was flat. He spoke matter-of-factly, and to hell with Spock's opinion on the matter. Jim Kirk had decided, and so it would be done.

"With your career, and my lack of one..."

"_We'll get through it_," Jim gritted out. "You'll get through this...this impairment, and I'll get through all the distance, and then I'll be back and you'll be better and we'll get through it. And if I have to drag you kicking and fucking screaming, then I will."

Spock said nothing, and his muscles bunched under Jim's hands.

"I nearly lost you," Jim said. "Hell, I _did _lose you. And I'm not going to voluntarily just give you up, even to yourself. I'm hanging on this time, and if you don't like it, then fucking tough."

"It is nonsensical to 'hang on' to a relationship and a partner who..."

"Don't you fucking _dare _finish that sentence."

Spock fell mercifully silent.

"I'm not giving up on you," Jim breathed. "Not this time."

"Not even if I have?" Spock asked quietly, and Jim's hold tightened minutely.

"No," Jim said eventually. "Not even then."

* * *

><p>The last three weeks were more or less silent. Snowed under with last-minute paperwork, Jim barely got to really discuss anything at all with McCoy or Spock, and though he would watch the physical therapy in the afternoons, it was with a tired eye and to silent participants.<p>

And yet it was obvious that the doctor and the Vulcan had talked in Jim's absence. Something had shifted between them; McCoy made no effort whatsoever to goad Spock into reaction, response, rebuttal, _recovery_. He did his job and that was all - otherwise, he left Spock alone. He was the epitome of professionalism in a way that he had never, _ever _been with Spock, even in the most dire of situations.

Spock said nothing now, and if Jim lay awake at night, he knew that Spock was doing the same. But they didn't speak.

"I'm scared to leave him like this," Jim confessed one morning, early, before Spock rose.

"Leave him to me," McCoy said, far too casually.

"What are you going to do?"

"Push him into prosthetics," McCoy replied easily. "His telepathy's more or less stabilised now - you notice how he's getting used to using his hand again? He's starting to shield properly again as well, so I'm hopeful he can keep that up. I'll poke him enough to keep it going anyway."

Jim didn't smile. "You think he could be mobile?"

"Yes. Whether he _will _be is entirely different. But he _could _be. Still, I'm going to start him with the arm. He needs two hands more than he does legs - and in any case, he's going to need further surgery on the left leg."

"What?"

"Calm down. Just...well, a trim, I suppose. It was a clumsy amputation, I admit it. As it is, it'll be too uncomfortable with a prosthetic. I'll have to refine that at some point. But not yet - I can't risk putting him in a healing trance right now."

"Why not?"

"Bad idea for depressed Vulcans," came the pessimistic response, and Jim winced.

"Bones...?"

"What?"

"I heard...look, I don't know where I heard it, but...I heard _somewhere_..."

"Spit it out, Jim, I haven't got all week."

"Can Vulcans will themselves to die?"

McCoy didn't look remotely surprised. "Yes."

"_Fuck_," Jim breathed heavily. "Oh God. Shit, Bones, what the hell am I doing, going back to...!"

"The right thing. Don't worry about that. I got it covered."

"How?"

"Needs a certain amount of mental concentration - and it drops the heartbeat. I can monitor a heartbeat," McCoy shrugged. "And if he even tries it, I'll have him stoned stupid in under ten seconds. We don't have to worry about that one, Jim."

Jim didn't look wholly convinced.

"Jim. _Go_. Trust me."

"You've talked this over with him."

"We came to an agreement, yes."

"And?" Jim pressed.

McCoy gave him an enigmatic smile - the one he'd learned to fear from years of rooming with him - and said: "And...go back to space. I've got him. We'll get _somewhere_, even if it's not quite where we want to go."

* * *

><p>The morning of Jim's departure dawned wet and miserable, raining like an Indian monsoon, and it matched Jim's mood perfectly. Spock was silent as Jim gathered his meagre belongings, seated in the wheelchair in the living room like a dying sentinel too stubborn to leave his watch, and Jim could feel his heart freezing in his chest just watching him.<p>

"Hey," he dropped to his knees in front of the chair. "Promise me something?"

Spock cocked his head.

"I'm going to write to you, every week, without fail. You don't have to answer me, but promise me you'll read them?"

"...Very well."

"_Please _look after yourself," Jim breathed.

He didn't care what he sounded like, or what he looked like, or even that there was a lump in his throat that scratched at his strength like a permanent irritant. He didn't care that he was begging for something futile, or that this would be the last time that he would see Spock for months, perhaps even years, or that this, despite all the assurances of McCoy and Pike, could very well be the end of their relationship.

Spock said nothing, and Jim closed his eyes.

"I have to go," he croaked, then rose up to clasp his hands around the back of Spock's neck and draw him into a kiss.

How he forgotten this? How could he have forgotten the kisses - the slot-click-placement of lips where they fit just right, the perfect comfort in kissing when there was nobody to impress and nothing to live up to, the way everything seemed to right itself just for those brief seconds, when he could pretend that everything was the way it had always been, and that it would always be the same.

How could he have forgotten?

And how could he miss the moment, however brief, when Spock kissed him in return?

* * *

><p><em>"To run, it takes the courage of a lamb; to love, the fierceness of a storm." - Carbon Leaf, Paloma.<em>

**END PART THREE**


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